


one hundred micrograms

by thingswithwings



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Fuck GOOP, M/M, Patrick Driven Wild By David's Elbows, Patrick's Gay Emotions, Pervy For Metabolic Stability, hypothyroidism, sweat kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:32:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21866587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings
Summary: It’s great; it’s wonderful. It’s great that David’s feeling so much better, just from that tiny pill once a day.But there’s a side effect that makes―that Patrick―there’s a side effect.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 127
Kudos: 969





	one hundred micrograms

**Author's Note:**

> I joked about writing this so often that eventually I actually wrote it! Who knew my hypothyroidism would one day give me an explanation for why a TV character wears leather sweaters in the summer.
> 
> Thanks to etben, for looking this over and cackling a lot.

“Oh, _doctors_,” David says, dismissively, during their first year of marriage. Patrick is heading in for his yearly checkup with his doctor in Elmdale, and he’s just asked David which doctor he sees. “They’re all terrible.”

“Sure,” Patrick says, measured. “But which one do you go to?”

Which is how Patrick finds out that his _husband_, with whom he was planning on spending the _rest of his life_, has been actively working to shorten that lifespan by avoiding his annual checkups for, from what Patrick can tell, roughly the last _ten years_. 

“Insurance was so annoying when I lived in the states,” David complains. “And then when we came back here we had other things to worry about.”

“You have this to worry about now,” Patrick says, firmly. “I refuse to be married to someone who uses Gwyneth Paltrow’s crackpot snakeoil newsletter as a primary care provider.”

David frowns, clearly biting down on his half of this argument, probably because they’ve had it before and it always ends with Patrick forwarding David scientific articles about vaginal eggs. “You have made your Goop opinions clear before, honey.” It’s David’s dangerous _honey_, not his affectionate _honey_ or his indulgent ironic _honey_. Patrick holds his ground.

“And just imagine how many fewer times per year we can have that Goop conversation if you go to a real doctor regularly.”

“Just imagine how many fewer times we’d have to talk about the doctor if you weren’t, like, obsessed with me going to one.”

“David,” Patrick says slowly, mind spinning, suddenly imagining David’s body full of sneaky hidden diseases or cancers or genetic conditions. “You’re going if I have to tie you up and gag you to get you there.”

He knows it’s a mistake as soon as he sees the wheels turning behind David’s eyes. 

“Here’s a thought,” David says, brightly.

“No.”

“What if we do the binding and gagging―”

“_David_.”

“And then _not_ the doctor part―”

Patrick tries not to get seduced by the image. “I―that’s not―”

“I mean, unless _you_ want to play doctor, we haven’t done that one―”

“I want you to live,” Patrick says, breaking in. The teasing, knowing smile falls slowly off of David’s face.

“You―what?”

“I married you! I want you to live! Like, a long time!” Patrick spreads his hands, exasperated. “Is there a real reason you don’t want to go?”

David looks at him for a few heartbeats, a few of the finite remaining heartbeats of his life. Eventually he says, “No.”

Patrick steps in close and kisses him, a plea and an apology. “Will you go for me?”

Heaving a sigh, David nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

*

There was sort of a real reason, it turns out, which is that David has doctor’s office anxiety, and makes Patrick go with him and hold his hand the whole time: while his knee is jumping in the waiting room; while he’s babbling irrelevant but very personal information at the NP in the office; and while he forgets how to breathe normally as soon as the doctor pulls out a stethoscope and asks him to. But they get through it, and then they get ice cream after.

“See? Not so hard,” Patrick cajoles, afterwards. 

David smiles, then schools his face back to a frown. “It was a trial and I will require ice cream tomorrow as well.”

“Fine by me,” Patrick says. The smile comes back.

They do get ice cream the next day. And then Patrick puts it out of his mind, crossing it off the list, letting himself rest secure in the knowledge that David is healthy, until the tests come back.

*

“So, the doctor actually says it’s not a big deal,” David points out, biting his lip and watching Patrick fall into increasingly intense Wikipedia and Mayo Clinic internet spirals. 

“Thyroid is mood and metabolism, which is . . . I don’t even know what else there is,” Patrick points out, glaring at the same tab he’s been glaring at for a while now. “So I think it’s a big deal.”

“Yeah, but it’s controllable, honey. That’s what the doctor said.” It’s David’s cajoling _honey_, not his I’m-putting-up-a-brave-front _honey_, which means David really believes that to be true.

Patrick sighs. “That is what the doctor said,” he agrees. 

“I just have to take these little tiny pills in the morning. These are so much smaller than benzos or like dextro or whatever. Honestly, it’s not even going to be a challenge.” 

A joke, to cajole and distract Patrick further. Patrick smiles. He’s inclined to be cajoled. Besides, after days of obsessive research, he has to admit he’s come to the same conclusion. David’s hypothyroidism should be easily controlled for life just with the pills. 

“It says you’re supposed to feel a lot more energetic, too,” Patrick says, closing all the browser tabs and forcing himself to give up on the research. “How’s that going so far?”

“Mmm, as I understand it, it takes a while for them to really have an effect?” David comes over to him, straddling him on the couch, wrapping his arms around his neck. Patrick obediently sets his phone on the table and gives David his full attention. “But we could do some controlled experiments.”

“Oh, sounds scientific,” Patrick says, and kisses him. He feels the worry start to drain away. 

*

The doctor scales David up from fifty to seventy-five to one hundred micrograms per day. Once his blood tests level out and the medication is working as it should, David does seem to have more energy. He even wakes up with Patrick sometimes. In the mornings. Without an alarm. This leads to a lot more of the kind of playful, sleepy, rising-energy morning sex that Patrick loves, that leaves him singing on his way to the shower afterwards, much to David’s amusement. David’s still never going to join him on a dawn hike, but that’s more of a principle thing. Still, Patrick can’t say he minds the change.

Beyond that, David takes on more projects at the store, he brings in new vendors, and he starts talking seriously about opening a second location in Elk Lake. And he seems happier: Patrick thought he was happy before, but now David’s bad days are fewer and farther between, and Patrick finds himself kissing a smile as often as not. It’s great; it’s wonderful. It’s great that David’s feeling so much better, just from that tiny pill once a day. 

But there’s a side effect that makes―that Patrick―there’s a side effect.

“What―what is that,” Patrick asks, when David comes back from his morning out at the goat farm and walks into the store like everything is normal. Everything is not normal. This isn’t normal. It’s not okay.

“What?” David asks, looking down at his black and white short-sleeved shirt. A part of Patrick’s brain that didn’t exist before he met David supplies the information that it’s from the same Givenchy collection as his leather sweater, white with black stars around the collar, but it’s―there’s―it’s definitely not a leather sweater. It’s thin. It clings to his body. “Did I spill?”

“No,” Patrick says, feeling like his brain and his mouth are no longer connected, because his mouth is having what he hopes is a normal conversation with David, while his brain is sounding alarm bells and setting off big red flashing klaxxons; his brain is full of foghorns and piercing whistles and the screech of an oncoming ambulance. _ALERT,_ Patrick’s brain is saying, with some urgency.

David’s _elbows_. David’s _upper arms_, even. Patrick blinks.

“Well then why are you looking at me like that,” David asks, in his husky question-that-isn’t-a-question voice, with a little offended shake of his head.

Patrick can even see a glimpse of chest hair, where the open collar dips down a little. Patrick didn’t see David’s chest hair for the first time until they’d been dating almost a _month_. It was a special occasion. Patrick remembers nuzzling it joyfully until David made him stop.

Now it’s just―out there.

“I, um. You look nice today,” Patrick manages, eventually. David’s eyes narrow for a moment, ready to be teased, but when Patrick doesn’t say any more, he smiles. 

“You think so? I haven’t worn this in ages, it’s so old.”

“Givenchy doesn’t go out of style,” Patrick says, which brings David right up next to him, drawn in like he always is whenever Patrick names his designer clothes.

“Thank you for learning to pronounce Givenchy correctly,” he breathes, and gives Patrick a kiss. His forearms brush against Patrick’s forearms, while he does it, and that sensation, skin on skin, sets off actual _sparks_ throughout Patrick’s body. Jesus. They’re _married_. David’s forearms should not be doing this to him. But.

But previously, the only reference point Patrick had for touching David’s forearms was in the bedroom. Or in the car, or on Ray’s couch, or that one time in the dugout on the baseball field, but always in private. And always . . . with context.

“Well, this kind of positive reinforcement really suits my learning style,” Patrick manages, dragging his mind back to their banter. 

“Mm, you’re such a good student.” As David draws away, the soft, delicate skin of his inner elbow passes under Patrick’s fingertips. Patrick gasps, just a little, quietly. David’s brow furrows, then unfurrows. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Yup,” Patrick replies, ignoring the continued alarm bells in his brain, because everything really is okay: he just has to get this under control. The doctor told them about hypothyroidism and metabolism and body temperature. It was in all the research. Patrick knew about this. It’s not unexpected. He’ll just . . . get it under control. 

*

He does not get it under control. 

For some godforsaken reason, the summer stretches on and on that year, and even though the calendar flips over to September, the sun doesn’t stop blazing and the days don’t get cooler. And David wears short sleeves. All the time. 

_Be cool, Brewer_, Patrick tries to tell himself, because he’s seen David naked and semi-naked in a variety of locations and lighting conditions, and he’s sucked him and fucked him and spanked him and put his tongue in his ass; he’s watched the smug, blissful look on his face when he bends Patrick in half and fucks him till he begs for it harder; he’s edged David with toys till he was a limp and panting mess under Patrick’s confident hands; he’s felt the strength of David’s arms straining against Patrick’s carefully-knotted ropes; he’s felt those arms lift him and hold him against a wall, felt them wrapped softly around him in the mornings; rested his head comfortably on David’s shoulder, kissed with reverence the hollow of his throat, watched the early morning sunlight play off of his bare chest while he slept.

It’s the setting, really. David out in public in anything less than a high collar and a full sleeve feels absurdly intimate. That’s all it is. It catches Patrick off-guard; it turns things that Patrick thinks of as private activity into public spectacle; it moves things that were behind closed doors out into the light. It’s not unlike having a secret revealed; the sudden contrast of it is a shock, sure, but it’s something he can deal with.

Despite having given himself this talk, though, Patrick does not manage to take his own advice regarding being cool. He loses his train of thought constantly. He messes up the inventory count on the stationery supplies and has to start again. He forgets to call the electrician, which David teases him about for roughly a week. But Patrick doesn’t really hear it, because he’s busy glancing at the notch of David’s throat or the dark hairs on his arms and then messing up Natalie’s schedule every time he tries to put it into the online system. 

It’s annoying; he’s annoyed. And turned on, all the time, in inappropriate places, with no way to stop feeling that way. He spends entire days with the low-grade buzz of arousal sparking over his skin, and no family-friendly peck on the lips next to the moisturizing sunscreen does anything to alleviate it. 

Occasionally, in the morning, David will put on one of his old favourite sweaters instead, and Patrick will breathe a sigh of relief, only to be distracted the entire day by the endless cycle of David getting too hot and pushing his sleeves up past his elbows, then realizing that he’s _pushed up the sleeves on his designer sweater_, then pulling them back down again and patting them in apology before forgetting and doing it again fifteen minutes later.

Really, it’s beyond annoying: it’s exhausting, is what it is. Patrick hasn’t been this turned on and annoyed since he first met David. Since before they kissed. After work, he finds himself pushing David up against walls, running his hands up under the thin material of his shirts, stripping him down fast and efficient once they’re finally alone, behind closed doors, in private. 

“What’s gotten into you lately?” David laughs, his breath coming fast as Patrick pushes him down onto the bed and tugs his boxer-briefs off fast and rough, making him naked, making him bare to Patrick’s hands and eyes and mouth. 

“You. But not nearly often enough,” Patrick shoots back, which makes David laugh again as Patrick closes his eyes and sucks his dick, feeling strange and desperate and not nearly full enough, not even with David’s cock pushing hot and hard and big into his body. He wants _more_.

“S-seriously,” David says, voice stuttering on an inhalation of breath, fingers kneading Patrick’s shoulders, hips shifting restlessly under Patrick’s hands as Patrick pushes up with his tongue against that sensitive spot below the head, as Patrick pulls out every trick he knows to make him lose it.

He wants David to lose it. He wants David to feel hot, and helpless, and annoyed, just like Patrick does all the time these days. He’s gonna make David feel that way. 

“Seriously,” David says again, between gasps, “seriously, what’s―you’re―oh, oh _God_, Patrick, fuck, stop, I’m gonna come if you don’t―”

Patrick grumbles in his chest but pulls off, lets David tug him up the bed and kiss him, fucks David’s mouth with his tongue instead.

“Don’t you want me to make you come?” Patrick asks, with a bite to his chin. David groans.

“Not in the first three minutes,” he protests. Then, as Patrick moves on to his neck, kissing and biting, sharp and hard, David hisses. “Fuck, fuck, you’re so fucking hot today, what is this.”

Patrick rolls him onto his back again and straddles him, leans down over him, drags his teeth over the stubble on David’s neck. It’ll irritate the skin; David will be red there, tomorrow. He’d have to wear a very high collar if he wanted to cover it up. But he won’t, and it’ll show. The customers in the store, their friends, David’s family, Twyla and George, they’ll know.

They’ll see the marks Patrick makes when he feels like this, desperate and desiring.

“This is me wanting to fuck my gorgeous husband till he’s raw and screaming,” Patrick says, in a murmur against David’s ear.

David shivers. “What the fuck,” he murmurs, but his hand comes up to cup Patrick’s neck, hard, to pull him down into another bruising, powerful kiss, and then he flips Patrick over onto his back, landing on top and pinning his wrists.

“Looks like you’ve got some energy to burn, too,” Patrick grins, wriggling up against the sensation of David’s strong arms holding him down. 

“Looks like it,” David says. “Must be the pills.” And then he closes his teeth on Patrick’s nipple, making him arch and yelp. 

They fuck like that, hard and rough and fast, push and pull, teeth and hands, almost like wrestling, and end up with David face down and spread open, all of his skin on display for Patrick’s hands and mouth, Patrick’s dick buried deep in his ass, both of them sweating and gasping through their long, slow, powerful thrusts. It lasts forever: desperate as it is, it seems to last forever, that arcing electric moment between them, the rough joy of the act swallowing Patrick up.

After, tangled up and breathing hard, David hmms to himself.

“So you’re saying that this is all just―nothing out of the ordinary,” he says, flapping a hand in the air above them.

“Yup,” Patrick replies, wiping stinging sweat from his eye and waiting for the tingling in his limbs to subside so he can get up and get something to clean them up with. He’s just not sure his legs are working yet. “All very normal.”

David hmms again.

*  
It goes on like that for a couple of weeks, Patrick lost in the heady, overwhelming sex at night, in the heady, overwhelming sight of David’s body during the day. He doesn’t get any cooler about the whole thing, but he doesn’t tell David, either, just watches his elbows and the edges of his collarbones as he goes through his day, riding the annoyed-but-turned-on feeling that soars through him and thinking about the moment later when he’ll get to strip him down the rest of the way.

One Saturday, when Patrick is pretty sure he messed up the change for a customer because he was thinking about place where David’s facial hair fades away into the skin of his chest and the float will be five bucks short, David breaks into Patrick’s daydreaming to suggest they get some lunch together.

“What?” Patrick asks, clearing his throat. “Sorry?”

“Lunch,” David repeats. “Natalie can mind the store.”

“I can,” Natalie agrees. “If you pick me up a turkey sandwich?”

So they head across the street to the café together to get some lunch. As usual, it’s broiling hot―where the hell is the autumn, anyway?―and David lets out a disgusted _ugh_ as soon as they step out under the sun.

He’s actually wearing a long-sleeved shirt today, not that heavy, with that wide collar that caught Patrick’s attention but with his arms covered up. It’s clearly too much even so, which makes sense, because Patrick’s too hot even in his much lighter dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. 

“Café’s air conditioning is still out,” Patrick comments with a grimace, because of course it is, of course the endless summer refuses to cut him any slack. 

“Ugh,” David repeats, and hands Patrick his phone to hold. Patrick takes it automatically, like he does whenever David’s wearing a skirt or tight pants with no pockets and acts like Patrick’s his own personal briefcase. It’s lucky for David that it’s an automatic movement for Patrick, because if it weren’t muscle memory Patrick would’ve dropped David’s phone as soon as he did what he does next.

David reaches behind himself, gently plucks up the sweatshirt collar from his neck, shrugs forward, and starts _taking his clothes off_ in the _middle of Main Street_.

Granted, he has a t-shirt on underneath. It also has a wide collar.

But Patrick’s never seen him do such a thing in public before, not anywhere, not for any reason. 

As he curls forward to pull the sweatshirt over his head and off his arms, the t-shirt rides up, exposing his belly and sides and lower back. The trail of hair that leads to his dick. The mole next to his spine.

Patrick knows that mole. Patrick looks at David’s lower back a lot; it’s one of his favourite things in the world to look at, broad and smooth, rippling muscle under soft skin. He looks at it when he’s buried deep in David’s ass, dick or tongue or fingers or toys, when they’re saying filthy things to each other and saying loving things to each other and scrabbling desperately at the sheets and it’s not―he can’t―

He makes a noise; he hears himself making a noise. It’s not a normal kind of noise to make. It’s not a _Be cool, Brewer_ kind of noise. 

Sweatshirt off his head and tangled around his wrists, David glances up at him.

“What?” he asks, clearly bemused. 

Patrick swallows. “Nothing,” he says.

David’s eyebrows go from puzzled to disbelieving. “Did you―hurt yourself?”

“No. I’m fine. It’s really nothing.” Patrick knows his voice is not convincing, but he doesn’t expect David to laugh, which he does. Somewhere deep in his head, the voice of reason lets out a little panicked _uh-oh, busted_, but Patrick shuts that voice out. 

“Okay, no, it’s not nothing, because you have been weird for weeks now.” He finishes pulling off the sweatshirt and folds it over his arm, reaching down to tug his t-shirt down into place. Patrick’s eyes follow the movement.

“Have . . . not,” Patrick replies. It’s not his usual witty repartee.

“Not your usual level of wit,” David says, and goddamn it, when did Patrick decide it was a good idea to have a husband who knows him better than anyone and can call him on his bullshit?

“Okay,” Patrick says, eventually, desperately. “Okay, I.” He purses his lips, glancing around; there aren’t too many people out and about, but there are a few. He grabs David by the upper arm―his palm against skin, right out here in the daylight―and push-pulls him around the side of the store, up against the brick wall, shielded from most of Main Street.

Then, with David where he wants him, with David looking down at him with an amused, expectant raised eyebrow, he’s not sure what to say. He gets closer instead.

“It’s this,” he says, burying his face against David’s neck, down against David’s exposed collarbones, and breathing in. He gets both hands around David’s upper arms and squeezes. Then, slowly, he dips a hand down to David’s waist, drawing his shirt up to expose again that beautiful flash of skin at his side, getting his fingertips on it.

This is what David was fine with letting everyone see. This is what David was comfortable exposing to the world. Patrick touches him there, softly.

“My―arms? My waist?” David asks, pleased but completely confused. When they first started getting physical, years ago, it was a little bit like this, Patrick getting overwhelmed and gulping air through his mouth while encountering David’s belly button for the first time, but that was a long time ago. He was new to everything then. He should be cool now, but he’s not, he’s not; he still feels new, sometimes. He still feels new.

But then there’s a gleam in David’s eye, of coalescing understanding, that Patrick doesn’t like one bit.

“It’s the _context_,” Patrick insists, annoyed, pushing up David’s sleeve and scratching lightly at the skin there, unable to help himself. “I just―you haven’t ever shown this much skin in public. Not since I’ve known you.”

“Oh,” David says, understanding clearly dawning. “Oh, that’s really cute.”

“Shut up.”

“No, no, if I’d known this was the journey we were going on, I wouldn’t have resisted going to the doctor. You realize it’s because of the medication, right?”

Patrick nods at him. “I’m really into you with balanced hormone levels,” he breathes. David kisses him, laughing, hardly able to get through it. Patrick laughs too, both of them laughing and kissing at the same time until they have to pull apart. When they do, David’s smile is broad and his eyes are past gleaming and well into fucking _twinkling_ and Patrick is in for it now.

“Mm, so,” he drawls, petting his hands lightly down Patrick’s shoulders, “it’s like, I flash a little glimpse of ankle and you just, completely lose it over my body, is that it?”

“I wouldn’t say _lose it_,” Patrick objects, but David rolls over him.

“No, no, that’s what you were trying to say, right? That you’re so attracted to my, like, inner elbows that seeing them in public turns you into some kind of sex-crazed animal?”

Laughing again, lifting David’s left arm and kissing his inner elbow, Patrick says, “That’s putting it a little strongly, I think.”

“Lemme tell you something else about the meds,” David says, looking down as Patrick kisses his way up David’s bicep.

“Yeah,” Patrick encourages, catching his breath.

“I’ve been sweating.”

Patrick stops what he’s doing and looks up sharply, because outside of (unwilling) exercise or vigorous sex, David usually doesn’t. Hasn’t. It occurs to Patrick that their sex lately has been a little more . . . slippery than usual. Fuck, that’s hot. He’s not sure why it’s hot, but it really, really is.

David smirks. “Knew that’d get your attention. Ugh, you’re so gross. But yeah, in the heat, I just―it happens, now.” He tilts his head back, ever so slightly, and Patrick sees: a bead of moisture behind David’s ear, running down from his hairline towards his collar.

He bends in, helpless to do anything else, and licks it. He wants to live in the salt-heat-skin taste of it, forever, forever.

“So gross,” David complains, but the complaint comes with a pleased smile and is followed by a turned-on in-drawn breath, so it’s not that convincing. 

“You’re really not helping me get past this fetish,” Patrick tells him, licking up below his ear, nibbling his earlobe. He’s salty everywhere, Jesus.

“Who said I wanted you to get past it?”

“You’re gonna have to if you want to ever do anything other than let me ravish you against the side of a building next to a public street,” Patrick says.

Before David can express what would undoubtedly be his disinclination to ever do anything else, Natalie’s head pops around the corner.

“Hey, you guys, I thought you were going to the café to get―oh, um. Okay, whoops, sorry.”

She’s gone before either of them can say anything back, and Patrick looks down at their position, his hands under David’s clothes, his mouth on David’s neck, David’s _sweatshirt_ still over his elbow, like he took it off specifically to make out, and―okay. No.

David sighs. “We do have to do things other than you ravishing me against the side of a building,” he says regretfully. “But let’s come back to this.”

Patrick nods and steps away, a little reluctant, but much more embarrassed at having been caught. They haven’t fooled around in public like this in―well, okay, it was a few months ago, but still. They’re a little too married to be making out in alleys.

They turn together and walk to the store.

“So, did you need me to put the sweatshirt back on, or . . . ?” David asks, with solicitous rising inflection and a smirk.

“Don’t know what you’re implying.”

“Just, I mean, for the sake of public safety.”

Tempted despite himself, Patrick looks over at David in his white t-shirt, his lightly tanned arms soaking up the sunshine, his collarbones peeking out, the bottom hem just barely brushing the top of his pants. He’s torn between ogling and thinking up something sarcastic to say when he walks into a lamppost.

David laughs at him, delighted, the whole time he checks for concussion.

*

That night, Patrick expects David to make a big deal about it, to tease him, but instead he looks at Patrick deliberately while turning off the window air conditioner in their bedroom.

“Gonna get hot in here,” Patrick comments, marking his page and setting his book on the nightstand.

“Guess so,” David replies, crawling up the bed, making Patrick giggle at the cheesiness of it. 

“Thought you hated getting sweaty.” 

David kisses his neck. 

“I believe you said that it was inherently crass,” Patrick adds. His body is waking up, heating up, already anticipating David’s touch. God, he likes this part.

“The lengths I go to indulge your fetishes,” David agrees solemnly. Patrick grins and rolls him over. 

It gets very hot, very quickly. Patrick licks the sweat from David’s hairline, from his chest, presses his face into his armpit. 

“Fuck, that’s hot,” David gasps, riding him, his thighs slipping against Patrick’s hips, the glistening skin of his collarbones pressed to Patrick’s face. There are rivulets of sweat sliding down his neck, into his chest hair where it catches and gleams; there are little beads of it on his arms. His hair is damp. He tastes salty again, like he did earlier that day outside the store, where he’d teased Patrick into helpless desire. Patrick groans and uses his hands to urge him faster, to make him work harder, their bodies sticky and pouring with heat in the close air.

*

David does tease him a little, later, when the a/c is back on and they’ve had a shower and a change of sheets, kissing him and calling him a pervert who’s kinky for metabolic stability. But other than that, he doesn’t say anything else about it, and Patrick is relieved. Now that David knows, maybe Patrick can finally get used to looking at his elbows in public. All this silliness can finally . . . stop. He hopes it’ll stop.

The next day, Patrick realizes that the reason David dropped it so quickly is that he was saving it up to troll him, and his relief quickly transmutes into complete irritation.

“I’ll just get these boxes,” David says, pointedly, bending over to pick up the latest shipment of hand santizer, letting his shirt ride up, exposing a whole acre of soft skin at his waist. Patrick is caught between laughing, yelling, and going over there to put his hand on it. 

“Okay, okay,” Patrick grouses. “It’s not like I’m going to lose control of my faculties at the sight of your back.”

“Isn’t it?” David chirps, and kisses Patrick’s forehead on his way to the stockroom, right where he still has a mark from the lamppost the day before. When he comes back for the next set of boxes, Patrick watches, interested.

“At least I’ve finally found a way to get you to move boxes on your own,” he puts in.

“Hmm, but lifting these might make me a little . . . sweaty. Maybe I’d better push my sleeves up.”

Patrick’s eyes widen, because he can’t imagine David rutching the short sleeves of a Rick Owens t-shirt up onto his shoulders for anyone, for any purpose, even to annoy the shit out of his husband.

Not that it wouldn’t look good. Like Danny from _Grease_. Jesus. Patrick drifts off a little, imagining it.

“You wouldn’t,” he breathes, involuntarily, which makes David purse his lips really hard over a smile.

“No, I wouldn’t,” David says, and bends over again, this time letting the shirt slip up far enough to reveal his sides, too. 

“Hardly appropriate for a place of business,” Patrick says, trying to breathe normally. He doesn’t know if he means the sleeves thing or what David is doing right now with his shirt. Both is probably the safest answer. Both. Patrick spends the rest of the day thinking about it, and then when they get home that night, he goes willingly when David pins him up against the wall, and he groans helplessly, lost, when David strips down to offer his naked body to Patrick’s mouth, when David holds him up and smirks at him and fucks him. 

“Don’t stop,” Patrick says, with David’s dick inside him, head arched back and throat exposed, toes curling, voice cracking: “don’t stop.”

*

The next day, David leaves their house in something decent, but when he shows up at the store after running errands, he’s in a tank top.

“Okay, you have got to be fucking kidding,” Patrick says, throwing up his hands. “You once told me that it’s uncouth to force other people to look at armpits.” David told Patrick this while Patrick was _playing basketball_. 

His tank top fits him . . . closely. The cut of it emphasizes the muscles of his arms and shoulders. The softness of his belly. His collarbones. _Fuck_. Anyone could just . . . see David’s collarbones. Patrick tries not to stare, but his gaze keeps catching and sticking, helpless, helpless to do anything but look at David’s body that he’s loved so much for so long, exposed to the hot, humid air.

“I did, but it’s just so warm out today,” David says, stretching his arms up over his head and arching his back, exposing the pale line of his triceps and the dark hair under his arms. 

A customer comes in behind David, stepping confusedly around him to get to the shelves of shampoo and conditioner. She does not seem to care about David’s collarbones, which is astonishing to Patrick.

David stretches again. Patrick’s thoughts, which he was trying to gather together, get scattered and jumbled again, like puzzle pieces thrown into the air, coming down to land in a randomized mess.

“Okay, okay,” Patrick grumbles. He takes a deep breath. He thinks his way through it, watching David at the same time, as David preens and smiles like an asshole. “You’ve made your point, now will you go in the back and get decent? This whole situation is unprofessional.”

He’s aware that he sounds like David, who always deems any situation he doesn’t like unprofessional, but he can’t help it. David lets out a low laugh and walks past Patrick towards the back room.

“So when you say I’ve made my point,” he asks, in a murmur. 

“I mean I’ll stay behind this counter while you help that customer,” Patrick replies, as quietly as he can, through gritted teeth. David’s grin is blinding, and Patrick loves him so much that he could almost forgive him for being such a dick. 

David comes out of the back room a minute later wearing his short-sleeved Valentino black-on-black camouflage polo, a recent eBay acquisition he’s extremely proud of. It fits him very nicely. Especially around the arms. Which he knows perfectly well.

“Appropriate for work, Mr Brewer?” he asks, sweetly. 

Patrick arches an eyebrow in reply. “Guess we’ll find out.”

The rest of the work day feels . . . a little different. Patrick’s annoyed at David’s glee, but at the same time, it’s like a secret they share between them, like something they’re gleeful about together. David’s teasing him, and Patrick’s letting him do it, and it feels good, to . . . submit to that.

David brushes behind him, far closer than is necessary, and steadies one hand on Patrick’s hip while he bends low to grab something from beneath the counter.

“Vendor emails,” David purrs, by way of explanation, as he pulls the black leatherbound vendors book from beneath the counter.

“Don’t we have that saved digitally?” Patrick asks, knowing for a fact that he himself saved a digital copy. 

David straightens up behind him, dragging his thighs against Patrick’s ass. “Do we?” he asks.

“Yeah. We do,” Patrick replies, allowing himself to push back just a little.

“Well. If only I had known that.”

With that, David’s hands squeeze Patrick’s shoulders, David’s hips press even harder against him, and his bare forearms brush against his shirtsleeves. Patrick shivers involuntarily; it’s one of the most erotic moments he’s experienced, and it’s not David eating his ass or feeding him chocolate or grinning up at Patrick while his white teeth gleam against Patrick’s nipple: it’s David’s forearms, the sensitive standing-up hairs and the smooth skin and the gently corded muscle, brushing lightly against Patrick’s partially-clothed elbows. On purpose. David knows, now, knows what this does to him, and he’s doing it on purpose. In public. In daylight. Patrick can’t do anything but react.

“Anything else you need?” Patrick asks, breathless, as David draws away.

“Hmm,” David says. “We’ll see.”

*

Patrick thinks about correcting the power imbalance. He imagines himself trolling David back: although he’s spent plenty of warm days in short sleeves, he could escalate; he could take his shirt off entirely, could flip his ballcap backwards and tuck his t-shirt into the back pocket of his tightest jeans, go up a ladder and, and―hammer something, drill something, screw―it’s not a productive train of thought, really. He could do it; he could come up with some kind of manual labour excuse. 

But even if Patrick did escalate, he tells himself, David has far more ammunition than he does, because of their relative positions when this started out; Patrick could take off his shirt, sure, but what if David matched him? He imagines _David_ shirtless, in a ballcap turned backwards, with his t-shirt in his back pocket, up on a ladder. Would David do that? Patrick wouldn’t have said that he’d walk around town in a thin tight tank top, before this. David might do it. Just the idea of it makes Patrick shiver with his whole body, despite the heat. 

In fact, every time he tries to imagine himself winning that war, his mind diverts back to David: David’s bare skin, David sweating, David shirtless and gleaming in the sunshine. He doesn’t think he could win. 

Or maybe he doesn’t want to win. Maybe that’s the thing.

So instead of trolling David back, he keeps wearing his usual clothes, and lets David escalate instead, his legs bare, his arms bare, his throat bare to the whole town as he dresses for the weather. His body glistening with beads of sweat. All these parts of David’s body that turn Patrick on, that make him feel hot and bothered, all visible to everyone; everyone able to see what Patrick wants most. What Patrick has always wanted most.

He doesn’t troll him back, and he doesn’t escalate. Instead, he takes it, takes David’s knowing, anticipatory gaze on him when they get back from work on a hot day; he takes David’s hands stripping him down; he takes David’s moaning appreciation of Patrick’s hands on him, touching all the places that are no longer secret and the ones that still are, caressing the borders and boundaries between them.

*

And David goes on laughing at him, whenever he gets glassy-eyed when he’s supposed to be helping a customer, and Patrick goes on ravishing him as soon as they’re behind closed doors. When David’s next round of eBay purchases arrive at the house, they’re all short in the sleeve and open at the neck, David’s equivalent of daring.

“You’re just going to show up to work naked at some point if you keep this up,” Patrick tells him, while he pins David’s hands to the wall and grinds against him. 

“Don’t have to, when I’m still getting this reaction,” David grins, preening, throwing his head back so Patrick can have access to his neck, to his hairline where it’s dampened by sweat.

“You’re insufferable,” Patrick says, getting his mouth on David’s neck, getting his hand up under David’s skirt, getting off on the low chuckle coming out of David’s throat. 

*

“You like it,” David says, as Patrick slips his fingertips under the sleeves of David’s Helmut Lang painter print white-on-black t-shirt. “You like that I make you so hot.”

“_I_ like it,” Patrick mutters, rolling his eyes while he digs his fingertips tight into the soft skin of David’s upper arms. “You’re the one who’s ridiculously vain about the whole thing. It’s really unattractive.” He spreads his legs and pulls David in against him, bringing them body to body. 

“Yeah, I can tell from your massive erection that you’re really hating this,” David says, sliding his hands up Patrick’s back and grinding their hips together for emphasis.

“I can’t help how massive my dick is,” Patrick tries to say, but breaks and starts laughing towards the end of the sentence. David laughs too, softly, so Patrick can feel it where David’s chest is pressed to his through those thin, thin layers of fabric.

*

“You like it,” David says again, later. They’re both naked, sprawled out on the bed on top of the covers; even with the a/c on full blast, it barely seems to touch the unseasonable and unfair autumn heat wave. Now that Patrick thinks about it, it was like this last year, too; he just didn’t have any reason to notice, because David’s metabolism wasn’t working and he wasn’t putting Patrick into states of constant reeling desire with the public display of his upper arms every time he reached for something on a high shelf.

“What, when you finger me like that? This isn’t news,” Patrick says, sidestepping David’s meaning.

“No, you like it that you feel out of control. Right? I mean. It’s not just the t-shirts. Or my irresistible body.” David’s eyebrows are furrowed, his lips pulled down, his voice soft. He wants to know. 

“Oh, it’s mostly your irresistible body,” Patrick demurs, running his hand up and down David’s bicep, fingernails scratching restlessly at the faint tan line where his t-shirt sleeves stop. David naked and in his arms is familiar, normal. But still beautiful. What he just said sounded like a joke, so he nips the underside of David’s chin with his teeth and adds, “You know I think you’re ridiculously hot.”

David hums a pleased little hum and kisses him. Patrick gets the sense that he’s going to let it go at that, and as the silence between them stretches on and David’s eyes start to slip closed, he becomes sure of it. 

“I do like it, though,” he adds, softly, into the quiet space between them. 

David’s eyes open again. “Yeah?” he asks. 

“It’s like . . . being reminded of when we first got together. How gorgeous you were, how much I wanted you. How surprised I was at how much I wanted you.”

“That time in the dugout,” David smiles, remembering. “You couldn’t wait.”

“Oh, I fulfilled some fantasies that day for sure,” Patrick jokes. David puts one knuckle under Patrick’s chin, tilts his face upwards, and kisses his smile until the joke fades away.

“And?” he says.

“And,” Patrick says, searching for the words. The feelings have been there for weeks now, lurking under the surface, the truth of this waiting to be told. “I guess it’s still nice, sometimes. To feel how my, my body responds. To you.”

“To men,” David adds, softly, caressing Patrick’s face, cupping his jaw. Patrick pushes against the touch, craving more of it. 

“Yeah,” he breathes. “But also specifically you.”

David kisses him again, softly. “Tell me more, honey.” It’s not David’s teasing _honey_ or his patronizing _honey_. It’s the one that just means he loves Patrick a lot. 

Swallowing, Patrick speaks: “You said, uh. Out of control. That’s not something I felt before I met you. Or, not in a good way, I guess. You know.” They’ve talked about this a hundred times, a thousand times, but David nods patiently like it’s the first time Patrick’s ever said it. It gives him strength to continue. “I felt like my life was out of control, but I’d never felt it like, like a rollercoaster. Like I could let go and enjoy it. Like I could want something so much I stopped being rational.”

“I’m glad you have that now,” David says. 

Patrick kisses him again, hotter and deeper this time, lush and demanding, tongue in David’s mouth. 

“But let’s not forget how much _you_ like it,” Patrick says, when he pulls back, grinning. 

“Hmm?” David’s mouth has moved down to Patrick’s neck, his teeth finding the line of muscle that makes Patrick weak in the knees. Patrick will not be dissuaded.

“You like me losing it over you.”

David looks up at him, rolling his eyes. “Who wouldn’t feel good if buttoned-up business-school Patrick Brewer started acting like an idiot because he saw their _elbows_?” David demands, and Patrick has to laugh.

“Fair.”

“And besides,” David says, softer. “We’re married. It’s nice to know we’ve still got . . . the fire, you know.”

“David. We’ve been married eight months. Little early for the fire to go out. I’m not gonna be talking about Jackson anytime soon.”

“Honey,” David breathes, against Patrick’s collarbone, whispered like a secret, “You know it pains me to have to pretend not to understand June Carter references.”

Patrick pulls him closer, not caring about the heat or the sweat of their bodies pressed together, into a hug. Their legs tangle together. “I do know that,” he says. 

*

Eventually, the weather breaks, and when it does, it breaks hard: summer to winter with hardly a breath in between. On a Monday, David’s wearing a flowing white linen Rachel Comey cape-thing that Patrick watches surreptitiously―or maybe not that surreptitiously, from the knowing look David gives him that makes him blush―and by that Friday, there’s a dusting of snow on the ground and David’s back in long sleeves.

“Sorry to deprive you of the view,” David says, pulling on a sweater that Patrick hasn’t seen in a while and disappearing under it. Patrick tries to remember the designer for that one; Neil Barrett, maybe? He’ll have to refresh his memory on David’s winter wardrobe. Which is what it is, now, as opposed to his all-season wardrobe.

“I’ll try to survive,” Patrick says, dryly, and David comes over to kiss him. 

Patrick, greatly daring, works his fingers up under the cuffs of the sweater, rubbing his fingertips against the hair that starts in earnest just above David’s wrists.

Predictably, David breaks their kiss. “Hey, you’ll stretch the cuffs,” he says, swatting at Patrick’s hands.

Pouting, Patrick says, “Guess I won’t be seeing your wrists in public again till next summer.”

“Guess not,” David agrees, tugging down the hem at his waist. 

Patrick kisses him again, and puts his fingertips under the cuffs again, and smiles against his mouth.

“I can’t wait.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] one hundred micrograms](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27464350) by [DelilahMcMuffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelilahMcMuffin/pseuds/DelilahMcMuffin)


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